Chapter 1
Opening' (オープニング Ōpuningu) is the first chapter of the D.Gray-man series written and illustrated by Katsura Hoshino. Synopsis "Exorcists... Those possessed by the Gods... They exist to destroy the ominous evils that rise from the darkness." It is the end of the fictional 19th century. The scene is that of a dilapidated church... A policewoman, Moor Hesse, starts to enter the church, only to be stopped by her partner, Chales, who believes that the church is cursed. Moor assures him that it is just a rumor, and they both head inside. As they wander the halls, Moor finds a cat and picks it up, and just as she does a cloud of bats flies by. A hand emerges from the cloud and grabs Moor, and when Chales, who has fallen, looks up, she is gone. The person who grabbed Moor shoves her back into a chair, remarking about something not getting away only to become shocked when he realizes he grabbed Moor without meaning to. Moor comes to her senses, indignant, and locks one end of a pair of handcuffs around the person's wrist. When she looks up, she seems stunned to see that it is just a boy. Moor then handcuffs the boy to a nearby window and begins interrogating him. The boy tells her that he has just arrived in town and did not know the church was thought to be cursed; he only went inside because the cat Moor had grabbed had eaten something of that belonged to his "master." When Moor asks where the boy's master is, he says he disappeared in India, to Moor's disbelief. Moor tells the boy to wait while she goes to get her partner, but before she can leave a scream tears through the air, followed by the sound of gunshots. Moor rushes out of the room and down the stairs to find that Chales has been tied to a pillar and shot, and as she watches black, star-shaped marking spread across his body. He then turns completely black and crumbles. When Moor stumbles forward, in shock, she stops when she realizes she can't breathe. The boy appears behind her, covering her nose and mouth with a cloth and telling her the gas from the body is toxic, and that Chales has been killed by an Akuma. Moor starts to ask a question, but before she can finish she passes out. Moor then wakes up back in the town police station. She is immediately dragged into the interrogation room, where the local detective is questioning the boy, whose name is revealed to be Allen Walker Allen is accused of killing Chales, the detective pointing to his reddened, "blood"-covered hand as the proof. When they take of Allen's glove, though, they find his hand isn't bloody; the skin is reddened and deformed, and some sort of non-organic cross has been embedded in the back of his hand. Disgusted, the officer asks if he isn't in pain from the supposedly self-inflicted "wound", calling Allen a lunatic. Moor steps in and defends Allen, saying that she was with him when the attack on Chales occurred, and another officer steps forward and points out that Allen wasn't carrying any weapons, while Chales had been killed by a high-caliber weapon. The interrogating detective becomes angry and asks Moor why she passed out. She apologizes, and the interrogating detective tells her she should have stayed awake, disappointed that she didn't even see the suspect. Allen steps in and tells them that Chales' killer was an "Akuma," and that the cross on his hand is an "Anti-Akuma Weapon" and that he, himself, is an "Exorcist," someone who specializes in killing Akuma. The scene changes to a strange figure with a top hat and an umbrella walking through a crowd as the people talk about Chales' death, the "possessed" church, and the accident that had happened with the pastor of the church and his wife two years before. The strange man walks into a house where another man is sitting in a wheelchair. The strange man encourages the man, an Akuma, to grow and evolve. Just then, someone calls out to the man in the wheelchair, calling him "brother." The strange man vanishes as Moor walks into the house. She notices her brother hasn't eaten his food, and when she points out that he hasn't been eating in a while, her brother apologizes and says he's full, but assures her that he'll be hungry again soon. Moor tells her brother, Marc, that he needs to take care of himself, and that their sister would want the same thing. A crash comes from somewhere in the house, showing that Allen (and the cat) have accompanied Moor to her home. Moor goes to Allen and drags him back to the room she left him in, a flashback revealing that the interrogating detective didn't believe Allen's story and made Moor take Allen back to her house to keep an eye on him while he (the detective) goes to look at the church, himself. While watching Allen, Moor asks him if he really thinks that was has been going on at the church has been caused by a demon. Allen answers that the kind of Akuma he is talking about isn't a demon, but rather a designed to look like a normal human while praying on the humans around it. When Marc rolls into the room, Allen's left eye turns black and he sees that Marc is an Akuma. Moor goes to comfort her brother, but just then Marc turns into an Akuma. The Akuma attacks, and Allen grabs Moor and flees with her, Allen's Anti-Akuma Weapon hand grabbing a bullet that had been fired by the Akuma and aimed at Moor. The force the bullet is carrying makes Allen and Moor fly out of the house and across town, sending them crashing into the church. As they recover, Allen explains that the bullet is a "Blood Bullet" made by the Akuma that contains a poisonous virus that kills all living things. The cat, which had been clinging to Allen the whole time, becomes covered in the same, black star-shaped markings that had covered Chales before it breaks down. Allen apologizes to the cat, and when Moor asks what had happened to her brother, Allen tells her that an Akuma has been wearing Marc's skin in order to move around unnoticed, and that Marc has been dead for a while. The Akuma arrives at the church, and when the interrogating officer and the group accompanying him come into the room, the Akuma fires its Blood Bullets at them and kills them in front of Allen and Moor. Moor tearfully demands to know why the Akuma killed them, calling it a killing machine, but Allen tells her that the Akuma aren't just killing machines, they're living weapons with a human soul embedded in them. As Allen describes the soul embedded in Marc's Akuma, Moor realizes that the soul is that of her blood sister, Claire, who had been killed in an accident involving a giant, hanging metal cross in the same church before Moor had had a chance to apologize to her sister for making her upset over her (Moor's) desire to become a police officer. Moor reveals that, after the accident, Marc tore the church apart and cursed God. Allen concludes that that must had been when the "Maker" appeared and offered to bring Claire back, a flashback confirming that Marc had let the Maker embed Claire's soul in a metal skeleton. Claire, realizing what had happened, became angry at Marc, but before Marc could realize his mistake the Maker ordered Claire to kill him and wear his skin. Moor is in shock by the revelation that the soul within the Akuma is that of her sister. Allen turns his Anti-Akuma Weapon arm into a giant, clawed hand and destroys the Akuma, freeing Claire's soul. As she disappears, Claire thanks Allen. Outside, Moor wonders if both her sister and Marc made it to heaven, Allen assuring her that they did. Allen then reflects on how it is his duty, as an Exorcist, to stop the Maker, the Millennium Earl, before he can destroy mankind. Characters of Appearance